Law Commons^™

Those Who Can't, Teach: What The Legal Career Of John Yoo Tells Us About Who Should Be Teaching Law, Lawrence Rosenthal

Lawrence Rosenthal

Perhaps no member of the legal academy in America is more controversial than John Yoo. For his role in producing legal opinions authorizing what is thought by many to be abusive treatment of detainees as part of the Bush Administration’s “Global War on Terror,” some have called for him to be subjected to professional discipline, others have called for his criminal prosecution. This paper raises a different question: whether John Yoo – and his like – ought to be teaching law.

John Yoo provides something of a case study in the problems in legal education today. As a scholar, Professor …

Teaching Controversial Topics, Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid

Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid

At the 2009 Future of Family Law Education conference at the William Mitchell School of Law, the authors participated in a panel discussing strategies for teaching controversial topics, which focused on teaching reproductive rights and related gender issues. This essay collects some of the strategies discussed at the conference. First we address what constitutes a “controversial” legal topic, outlining the several different ways in which a topic might be or become controversial within the context of a particular class. Next, we discuss the importance of laying the groundwork, throughout the semester, for the anticipated—and unanticipated— discussions surrounding controversial topics and …